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Resetting Xbox

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Re: Resetting Xbox

#831

Post by philistine »

hbn wrote: post #16

It was pretty rich seeing armchair video game industry analysts act like the new CEO was gonna usher in a new age for Microsoft's gaming division because she got to announce the updated logo and some games that would have obviously been in development long before she became CEO. Microsoft is never going to figure out gaming. It's more art than engineering and they can barely manage the engineering with all the interv…

Console generations are a cultural construct. And just like the bit wars of the 90s, they are cultural constructs that cannot explain the current situation.

We have not left the PS4 era. Both Sony and Microsoft use modern CPU and GPU in the PS5/Xbox Series that can 100% replicate the previous console. They use the exact same online store, ushering in a modern era where old devices will lose access to the store, but the store's never gonna close. All of this makes the use of generations to describe console gaming obsolete. We don't talk about generations in phones, or laptops. Same thing with gaming.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#832

Post by simoncion »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #366
dsfnajlsdfnafn wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> acrimoniously splitting from the traditional studio system. Yeah, he split from the traditional studio system to create... his own traditional studio system. Kojima is precisely what happens when you stop thinking of games as actual an interactive entertainment format and start thinking of it as a "cinematic experience" instead. Death Stranding is only a game by the narrowest of margins. What it is is a movie with…

> Kojima is precisely what happens when you stop thinking of games as actual an interactive entertainment format and start thinking of it as a "cinematic experience" instead. And for Western devs, we have Rockstar doing that. RDR2 is a wonderful movie, but a pretty poor game. Unfortunately, they forgot what medium they were working with.

> RDR2 is a wonderful movie...

It's a decent movie, yeah.

> ... but a pretty poor game.

I disagree.

> Unfortunately, they forgot what medium they were working with.

I strongly disagree.

You didn't like what RDR2 was doing, and that's fine. I had a blast with it, but I'm the kind of psycho that loves games whose big thing is traversing gorgeous terrain. Similarly, there are games that people absolutely adore that I absolutely cannot see the point of.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#833

Post by philistine »

thih9 wrote: post #458
wincy wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids begged for me to buy Tomodachi Life and Pokemon Pokopia and they’ve been absolute smash hits in the house. Pokemon got me hooked for a month or two until I mostly beat it, and the kids play Tomodachi Life every day and have funny little stories to tell. So many modern games just aren’t fun, it doesn’t matter what the graphics look like if the game is boring.

Sandboxes. Minecraft was one. Now it’s getting called a platform, at least in the submitted article. That’s good for engagement and monetization I guess, but sounds way less fun.

Pokopia and Tomodatchi only look like sandboxes at first glance. They are far more directed. They're not a perfect square with you in the middle. They're a star shape with you in the middle.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#834

Post by signatoremo »

7thpower wrote: post #599
Drupon wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>150M at 5B revenue is not great: that's 3% margin! Oy vey maybe this kind of money grubbery is not good for our society.

The awareness of a poor return on investment is a good thing for society. We want to do more with fewer resources. Making terrible decisions, such as investing in distractions for your company and consumers, and then letting your workforce pay the tab.. is the thing that is not great for society.

One of those terrible decisions was probably hiring too many developers, how do you suggest they fix that issue, besides changing leadership?

Many of those developers may not have the job elsewhere, or job paying much less. They now have the experience working in a proper software engineering environment.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#835

Post by philistine »

Apocryphon wrote: post #127
manytimesaway wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point wasn't about Nintendo ruining things in-house rather than them following the exact same trends than Sony & Microsoft, only a few years late. MP4 is what OP was talking about, an "interactive Hollywood" experience that betrays previous Metroids, adds discutable open-world design cues, and locks features behind $30 figures.

This isn't the first time Nintendo has outsourced a disappointing Metroid game, if Other M is any indication. Remains to be seen if this is part of a larger trend for that company.

Metroid has more duds than hits. Metroid Prime 4 is par for the course for the franchise.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#836

Post by simoncion »

zeratax wrote: post #697
dsfnajlsdfnafn wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> acrimoniously splitting from the traditional studio system. Yeah, he split from the traditional studio system to create... his own traditional studio system. Kojima is precisely what happens when you stop thinking of games as actual an interactive entertainment format and start thinking of it as a "cinematic experience" instead. Death Stranding is only a game by the narrowest of margins. What it is is a movie with…

death stranding made just moving through the game world engaging and challenging. and on top of that it has very satisfying combat mechanics and async multiplayer gameplay elements. yeah the game has long cinematic cutscenes, but i do not see how that detracts from the actual gameplay

> ...on top of that it has very satisfying combat mechanics...

Man, the sequel made the combat totally trivial. I'm at the sequel's "Episode 10", and I've the opinion that DS2 took nearly everything that anyone ever complained about in Death Stranding and made it effectively optional. I don't like the decision, but I'm still enjoying the game.

> yeah the game has long cinematic cutscenes...

It really wouldn't be a Kojima game without them!

Re: Resetting Xbox

#837

Post by georgeecollins »

venzaspa wrote: post #718
georgeecollins wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, 3% is terrible. But the point is you spent a fortune buying all these studios-- aka key strategic intellectual properties-- and then you manage them badly. Then you just sell or shut them down at their absolute bottom and you end up just destroying value. Older forms of media understand this. WB loses money and its still really valuable because people see the potential of Batman, Harry Potter etc. IP studios ar…

Depends, Tesco (the UKs largest supermarket chain - one of the largest in the world) on average net about 2.5-3% profit on a given year and they have to do a lot more than pump out a game or two every few years.

The thing to understand here is the risk premium. Tesco is less risky on many levels. It also does not live inside a tech company that has really high gross margins.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#838

Post by philistine »

manytimesaway wrote: post #93
butlike wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about the Star Fox comment. Tell me if I got this wrong: A remake (1) of a remake (2) of a remake (3) (1) A remake (Switch 2 Starfox, a remake of StarFox 64) (2) StarFox 64 (A remake of Super Nintendo's StarFox) (3) ??? I don't know what the 3rd level of remake you mention is, but I'm curious!

Star Fox (SNES), Star Fox 2 (SNES mini), Star Fox 64, Star Fox 64 3D, Star Fox Zero and Star Fox (Switch 2), while having minor gameplay differences, are all retellings of the same in-game story (the eponymous Lylat Wars).

The previously unreleased Starfox 2 is not a retelling, it is a proper story sequel. That is the one game where you're wrong, every single other game is a remake, with Starfox Zero the most tenuous one, but still a reimagining. They've remade the same story five times.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#839

Post by philistine »

WorldMaker wrote: post #80
butlike wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about the Star Fox comment. Tell me if I got this wrong: A remake (1) of a remake (2) of a remake (3) (1) A remake (Switch 2 Starfox, a remake of StarFox 64) (2) StarFox 64 (A remake of Super Nintendo's StarFox) (3) ??? I don't know what the 3rd level of remake you mention is, but I'm curious!

Between 1 and 2 was the 3DS remake which added levels and cleaned up the story some. The Switch Starfox includes those parts, too, from what I've heard.

Nope. There are no new levels on 3DS.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#840

Post by tfigueroa »

pfdietz wrote: post #817
nayroclade wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not selling at a loss though. The real issue here is that businesses such as Microsoft do not exist to serve a market or make enough money to survive and pay their employees. They exist to increase the value of their owner's shares. This is predicated on an unsustainable model of continual growth, with the expectation that every market they operate in can produce high margins and endless expansion. But deman…

Overall they are not selling at a loss, but parts of what they're selling are being sold at a loss. The market is telling them to slim the f- down and get rid of those money-losing parts. This is all normal and justifiable. Where is the logic that corporations need to preserve dysfunctional parts of their operations?

Corporations don’t need to, no. But they are systems, and it’s a beginner mistake to assume changing one part is going to affect the whole in some simple, predictable, logical way.
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